Rule of Law! Rule of Law!

posted by The Vidiot @ 6:23 PM Permalink

Bush Lawyers Decry Plan for War Crimes Courts

WASHINGTON — Bush administration lawyers Wednesday rejected congressional suggestions that suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban war criminals be prosecuted in the U.S. military justice system, saying military courts provided protections for defendants that were unwarranted in the war on terrorism.

The lawyers said the government must be able to use evidence and testimony gathered through coercion and hearsay and did not want to provide captives with lawyers before interrogating them for intelligence purposes.
[...]
But lawyers from the Defense and Justice departments told members of the House Armed Services Committee that such a plan was unworkable and urged lawmakers to retain the system put in place by President Bush four years ago, despite the Supreme Court's finding that it violated U.S. law and the Geneva Convention.
[...]
Steven G. Bradbury, head of the Justice Department's office of legal counsel, said the administration also wanted to maintain flexibility in introducing evidence coerced from detainees.

"We do not use as evidence in military commissions evidence that is determined to have been obtained through torture," Bradbury said. "But when you talk about coercion and statements obtained through coercive questioning, there's obviously a spectrum, a gradation of what some might consider pressuring or coercion short of torture

BullSheeeeit! E.g.

US acknowledges torture at Guantanamo; in Iraq, Afghanistan - UN
06.24.2005, 11:37 AM

GENEVA (AFX) - Washington has, for the first time, acknowledged to the United Nations that prisoners have been tortured at US detention centres in Guantanamo Bay, as well as Afghanistan and Iraq, a UN source said.

And not just that but the Supreme Court specifically stated that Gitmo prisoners were subject to Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions which not only prohibits torture but "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment"